Can Parkinson’s symptoms be held at bay by playing golf?

Parkinson’s has no known cure – yet. However, if the progress that Gary Smith has made is any indication, it’s possible that a little golf therapy could go a long way.

Strange as it sounds, Gary Smith of the Chicago area, believes his Parkinson’s is in remission because he started playing golf. A lot of golf.

Tim Rosaforte profiled Smith’s struggles last December for Golf Channel, but at a recent ING conference, Smith spoke to attendees. His story was nothing short of miraculous.

For Smith, it all started about ten years ago, when his wife noticed that he was moving differently and that his facial expressions had changed. He was having trouble dribbling a basketball, one of two sports he had played in college. He knew something was wrong.

He went to a neurologist, Dr. Martha McGraw at Northwestern Hospital, and her diagnosis was Parkinson’s. He was heartbroken, but not shocked because his father had it. Smith knew what could be ahead of him, having seen what his father lived through for more than two decades.

Naturally, Smith went to the internet to see if anything could slow down or stop the progress of gradual weakness that Parkinson’s causes. Smith’s neurologist confirmed what his internet searches said, that exercise slows down the progression of the disease.

Smith tried everything, including running marathons. None of those really worked.

Then in 2015, seven years after the initial diagnosis, the Smiths took a trip to Scotland, near St. Andrews, to find where his wife Nan’s family home had been before they came to the U.S. They couldn’t find the ancestral homestead and presumed it was a victim of progress, paved over by something new.

Gary admitted that he wanted to play St. Andrews even though he didn’t play golf often enough to have a handicap. But he didn’t want to interfere with the trip because it was for his wife. She insisted that they try to get him a tee time. Somehow, they did. The starter made an exception. It would change his life.

Smith wasn’t sure if it was just being at St. Andrews, but something changed that day. He felt better when he got off the golf course. When he got back from the trip, he started playing golf like he had never played before. He started going to ranges. At first once a week, then twice a week, then three times a week, and pretty soon, he was going to the range every day. He felt so much better that he called his neurologist to tell her about the change playing golf had made in his daily life off the practice tee.

In the Golf Channel report, Dr. McGraw confirmed that Smith felt better and that his movement was better. Smith said one small thing he noticed was that he could type on his computer again without failing to get to all the keys with his fingers. He said he was walking without shuffling, and that he had facial expressions once more, to name a few easy-to-spot changes.

This year marks the tenth season since Smith was diagnosed, and if he did not tell you he had Parkinson’s, you would not know it. He looks like a very fit guy in his late 50s, early 60s. He attributes it all to golf.

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He walks when he plays 18 holes. He will walk and play 36 holes. He went to Top Golf so often that they took an interest in him, and when they heard what golf did for him, they provided him with Platinum membership. According to Smith’s own accounts, he hits at least 1000 balls a week.

However, more significantly, his medications have not increased, and in most cases, according to his neurologist, Parkinson’s patients have increased intake as the disease progresses. Nan Smith just says golf brought the man she knew before the diagnosis back to her.

At the end of his speech to ING, Smith showed attendees a large, plastic prescription bottle with three golf balls in it. He said the directions were to, “Take one ball every hole for 18 holes. Repeat as needed.”

He calls it a par-scription. It was cute, but he’s not kidding.

The mystery is, was his remission due to golf? Or was it something else? No one knows for sure. That’s the problem.

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Smith wants to find an entity that will fund a study of early diagnosed Parkinson’s patients to see if golf helps more people stave off the debilitating effects of the disease. Talking with Smith and others after his speech at the ING conference, one person suggested contacting Michael J. Fox, but really, how does someone contact Fox? No one in the group, which consisted of golf people, knew how. The PGA Tour, Tiger Woods’ agent, any professional tournament, that kind of stuff, sure, but Michael J. Fox? He will have to find Smith.

Hopefully he will hurry. Because, what if golf really is the answer for more than one person?

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